Hard to Get
by shootingstella
Summary: In which Tate would rather be a masked mad man than a boyfriend, the house is essentially the mafia, and Violet is getting bored. Dark!Violet, Rubbery!Tate Rated M for everything.
1. Pilot

What am I even doing? I mean really?

Whatever. This has been ruining my train of thought for quite some time.

The chapters are gonna follow the episode list. Hopefully.

* * *

Vivien's scream cut through the mundane silence of Sunday routine. Violet had been in her new room, trying to create some semblance of order before a long week at a new school left her without any fucks to give and Ben was in the study, arranging the perfect collection of pretentious coffee table reading material to impress his new patients, but they both dropped what they had been doing and met up beneath the unfurled attic stairs.

The steps swayed back and forth as they rushed up. Ben reached his wife first, wrapping his arms around her as she dissolved into self-deprecating laughter and a few adrenaline charged tears. Hanging above her from a netting of old chains was a black latex suit. Violet scoffed at her mother, and laughed along with her father's teasing as they examined the offending article of …clothing? But she acted with a distant sort of interest. The kind you show when you need to; when you need to convince people that you are fine, and normal, and not completely distracted by the channels of shiny silver zippers running through the shiny rubber sex suit in your attic.

"Kinky," her father muttered, shaking his head with a finality that suggested they should all leave now, and maybe he'd throw the suit away later, and then they'd never have to think of it again.

But Violet wasn't sure she could ever stop thinking about it.

* * *

"Your mom was right, this school seems great," Ben Harmon said happily referencing one of the countless conversations he had had with Vivien about anything and everything besides their marriage. "I think you could be really happy here Vi,"

Violet sighed and hopped out of the car. "Happy as a clam," she mused through the window, humoring her father with a final forced smile as she walked towards the school; her own personal steaming pot of white wine and butter sauce.

* * *

School was boring.

Lunch was a nightmare.

Her cigarette and her smart mouth earned her a split lip and an afternoon in detention.

And there she sat, thirty five minutes in to an hour long sentence, peeling the skin off her lip and trying not to cry from boredom. She wasn't a fan of West Coast punishment. No homework. No lines to write. Just quiet reflection Zen bullshit.

When she glanced at the clock on the far side of her room, she saw that brooding about this monumental waste of her time had passed a grand total of four minutes.

_Fabulous._

Violet let her eyes wander around the strange room, desperately trying to snag on anything of interest, and finally getting caught on a golden plaque that hung on the opposite wall near the edge of the stacks.

It was too far away and her vision was too crummy to make out what it said, or even what it was for. She shrugged it away, making a mental note to check it out later and continued her search for entertainment.

After another twenty minutes, spent laughing at the kid in sweatpants with a spontaneous boner and then reopening her split lip, Violet was finally free.

Meandering out behind the mass exodus of delinquents, she remembered the golden award thing on the wall and went a little out of her way to see what it was.

Violet grimaced when she saw that it wasn't an award at all, it was a memorial of fifteen students.

"How did all these kids die?" she asked the detention master who was, surprise to her, rolling out from behind the librarian's desk.

"There was a school shooting here a few years back," he answered simply, "A student of ours went on a rampage."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Violet mumbled awkwardly, even though she wasn't entirely sure she meant it.

"Don't be," he assured her, "Not to me anyway. I was lucky. An inch to the left and my name would have been up there too."

Violet nodded; distancing herself from the library a bit before letting "Cool," slip out from under her breath. One week surrounded by the scum in this place had been long enough to convince her that they probably deserved it.

* * *

Violet walked home that afternoon, ripping her way through a new pack of cigarettes and reflecting on the misconception of public school being cheap, since at the rate she was going, she'd need to buy a pack a day.

Home was quiet; seemed empty actually. Her mother's minivan was in the driveway but this place was so big she could have searched for days and missed her. The hair on the back of her neck stood up as she wandered through the kitchen; making a snack, turning the TV on and then off again, and answering the calling tea kettle with her mom's least nauseating organic loose leaf mixtures before finally retreated to her bedroom.

In the hopes of easing her boredom and, not that she would ever admit it, loneliness, Violet turned to the internet.

Google searching the West Field Massacre turned up a few interesting pages once Tumblr became redundant. A dozen or so victim's faces splashed across the page without piquing her interest too much. It wasn't until she stumbled across the 'lunatic' that she sat up a bit straighter in her seat.

He shot 16 people, killed 15 of them, and was then gunned down by the SWAT team in his Los Angeles home.

_It's a shame he was unstable,_ Violet mused to herself, _He's a hottie._

She clicked out of the window in a hurry, the wrongness of her thoughts bubbling up and overwhelming her. Her wrists itched. He fingers begged to scratch them.

* * *

_It's not like I would have introduced myself to her anyway, _Tate reasoned as his eyes tracked Vivien Harmon but his thoughts lingered on her daughter. He had been lucky to catch her researching him, things could have gotten messy if he showed up, posing as the neighbor boy straight out of her nightmares. The slow grating sound of wallpaper being picked and peeled away from the masterpiece that lay underneath, filled the room with a pleasant sort of white noise.

_It's a shame though; she would have been fun..._

Tate felt himself going stiff in his jeans as he thought about all the ways he could have fucked the younger Harmon girl all over this house in an attempt to knock her up. _Would Nora be just as happy with a 'grandchild'?_ He wondered, before letting his mind wander through all the possibilities that had slipped through his fingers in a single internet search.

An actual relationship would have come with a ton of extras. She'd probably even suck him off at some point. It had been a decade since the last time he got any head, longer since he got good head that wasn't just him fucking Maria's face around the words 'Look what he did to me'.

He didn't have time for things like that anyway though; an invisible hand reached out and waved the hypothetical fling away with a scoff; he was too busy running this place. With his attention back where it needed to be, he thought back over the past few nights.

Had he or anyone actually seen Vivien and the good doctor fuck since they moved in. Usually there's a morbid sort of house christening when that happens; all the ghosts gather around and watch like perverts as the new residents brake the cardinal rule of haunted houses by fucking, and thus, sealing their own fates.  
He couldn't imagine that Moira would have let him miss it.

Suddenly it was a good thing he had his priorities straight. If their frigidity became a problem, he'd have to kill them like he did the queers so a sprier couple could move in and reproduce. _What a hassle._  
-

When Ben Harmon came home that evening he smelled like a strip club. Tate knew because, well fuck, you wouldn't be able to spend 24 consecutive hours at the beach either. He yawned dramatically despite his invisibility as he watched the couple flirt, then fight, and then finally, finally fuck. Tate looked on, disappointed with the show as they made passion look awkward and ultimately, he left before it was over. (Or at least before it was over for Vivien; Ben was a two minute man and Tate hadn't expected anything more from him.)

Mildly aroused and feeling good because manslaughter had been crossed off his schedule for the week, he reappeared upstairs where he knew Violet would be. Just because he couldn't show himself to her, didn't mean he couldn't watch her shower.


	2. Home Invasion I

Ben's woken up every day this week exhausted. He's been having strange dreams and even though he can't remember anything other than sleeping through the night, he feels like he's been running midnight marathons. It's making him short tempered and cranky and when he gets a call from back home, he's absolutely impossible.

The girl he used to fuck when he was supposed to be working late nights had called. She was late and she wanted him to come by. To talk…. about their options.

With little patience to spare for the family he actually wanted, the thought of flying out to Boston to hold some sluts hand in a cold doctor's office while she cried and tried to rationalize keeping it was suffocating.

But the other option was her coming here, hormonal and pissed off, so he told Vivian he had to fly to Chicago for a symposium and paid cash for his ticket.

* * *

Despite the limited tolerance policy for fighting that her school had displayed the day before, Violet didn't find herself holding back when the bitch from the courtyard came at her again. She blew off detention and headed straight home, looking forward to an empty house so she could explore in peace.

* * *

The knock at the door on Tuesday night came as a surprise to Violet who had just rejoined the living after an afternoon spent snooping through the attic. She had gone up there to get a better, more private look at the rubber suit, not that she would ever admit it. Biting back the disappointment at its absence, she turned to some of the other treasures and tragedies stored away up there for distraction.  
Violet knew that something was wrong with the woman at the door, like _really _wrong, even before the two cronies emerged, already inside her house and hidden away for god knows how long. Vivien shot her daughter a comical 'oops' look when she realized what was happening, what she had let in, and Violet shook with rage.  
"Who wants to go first?" the ring leader asked. As she tied Vivien down to a wing backed chair, Violet sized her up. If this lanky bitch had been alone, Violet would have been able to take her.

"Take the girl upstairs Dallas. Get started."

"So much for not using real names, _Bianca_," the other girl whispered harshly as she secured the ropes on Vivien's wrists.

"Don't be stupid, and don't insult his mother. Dallas _isn't_ his real name," Bianca shot back, eliciting a grumble from the third member of what Violet decided must have been a pretty ramshackle team of criminals.

Her smirk didn't go unnoticed, and Bianca told the other girl to with them, "She looks like trouble."

Violet stuck her tongue out at her as she struggled against her two guards half way up the stair case.

"Just cooperate with them Violet!" he mother yelled, sounding desperate and terrified. Violet didn't think she sounded any different than usual.

Tate stood at the apex of the stair case, trying to keep an eye on both girls as he shook with rage, desire to act, and maybe a little bit of personal offense.

This was his house.

How dare they came into _his_ house and fuck with his victims… well, possible victims. He wasn't sure if he was going to have to kill them yet or not, but they were in his house so _damn it_ they were his to kill!

Maybe-murderer turned unlikely-hero, Tate's eyes darted between the two women and he wondered if he could manage to save them both. Maybe, but he'd have to do it without killing their attackers, because he really didn't want these jokers hanging around.

Vivien had dissolved into tears, offering money, blank checks, art, crown jewels, whatever she had. Tate knew they didn't have much so he wondered if maybe Violet's smarts were a maternal trait and this was all part of some kind of plan.

When Bianca walloped her across the face with what looked like some kind of shitty arts-and-crafts ashtray, Tate decided that even if she had a plan, it had been shit.

With Vivian incapacitated, Bianca was slapping a box of cheap menthols against her palm. The look on her face when she took her first drag assured Tate that he had at least a minute of nicotine distraction to check in on Violet.

When he got to the upstairs bathroom, the sight of Violet standing in the antique claw foot tub, dressed in an old fashioned nurses uniform and smirk made him go inconveniently hard in his pants. She looked like a god damn wet dream and he was momentarily grateful to her would be murderers for this image to think about later.

While Violet attempted to stall by talking up her assailants and playing up the sarcasm, Tate felt his head go woozy with jealousy. She was perfect, and these two were so stupid and they couldn't keep up with the sharp little barbs she kept throwing at them and they were wasting an above average victim.

He had killed a lot of people in his day, and not one of them had given him pause like she would have. God, she was the kind of victim he'd keep tied up for a few weeks just to enjoy. Maybe he'd even have kept her, taken care of her, fucked her up with all kinds of Stockholm Syndrome so she would love him.

_Wait, what? Jesus Tate, you need to pull yourself together. _

Vivien's scream from downstairs broke his concentration. Violet would be fine. She could take care of herself; he was back down stairs in a flash.

Bianca was essentially pistol whipping Vivien with that damn ashtray. _PotteryWhipping?_ Tate gave himself a moment to wonder before dashing, still unseen to the basement, hoping his favorite axe would still be right where he left it.

He skidded to a halt, loosing track of his invisibility as the sight at the bottom of the stairs shook him to his core.

"Your mom's in trouble," his own voice sounded tortured as he called down to the poor confused girl holding her head at the bottom of the steps.

Violet's eyes immediately snapped towards him, she could only see the tall jeans and flannel clad body of a stranger at the top of the stairs; his face was obscured by shadows.

She was up in a second, disregarding all of her questions immediately. No longer caring how she got to the basement. Why her neck hurt? Why her head ached? Why she felt lighter? Why she felt cold?

She only cared about getting up off her ass and making it to the living room in time to stop whatever was about to happen there, and maybe also a little bit to catch up with what seemed to be the kindest of the intruders.

By the time she hurdled through the space he had occupied, Tate was gone. She spared a second to look for him, side to side, up, around, but he was gone. Had he ever even been there in the first place?

It didn't matter if he was real though. What mattered was that he had been right.

Violet scanned the living room quickly, Bianca was hovering over her mother, bracing for another blow to her already bleeding head. Violet made the first loud noise that her tongue was able to form and it distracted him for a moment but now she needed something better.

A weapon.

She glanced at the fireplace and saw the brass tools sitting beside it, an almost cartoonish ray of light ran across them; _Enticing._ The second she decided she wanted them, she was across the room with the handle of the fire poker clenched in her hand.

Her head spun for a second but she didn't shy away from it. She spun with it, swinging hard and hitting the woman square in the face.

She went down hard.

When Dallas and The Stupid One came clattering down the stairs, Violet was more than happy to interrupt their celebratory chattering with a side long swing that caught them both across the middle and folded them in half.

They fell down the remaining few stairs and groaned until she knocked them unconscious.

Vivien was whimpering awake at the commotion, but Violet ignored her. She was too busy thrumbing with rage and new found power. It was intoxicating; for both of them.

Tate was stunned silent, frozen in his place between the two limp bodies at the foot of the stairs and his girl. His eyes tracked every dramatic rise and fall of Violet's heaving shoulders, and every twitch of her rapidly dilating pupils.

She was so beautiful that it made him dizzy with her brow lowered, a smirk tugging up on one side. She was looking in his direction with eyes that seemed almost wanting; inviting. Could she see him? Did she want him?

His pathetic lonely boy train of thought was disrupted as he felt a disoriented but conscious and pissed off Dallas rushing through his space, straight into Violet, meeting her with a harsh body check that sent them both to the floor.

She was already dead, so Tate didn't feel guilty when all he could do was watch.

He stood by the sidelines, numb tongued and unable to remember his own name as Violet sunk her thumb nails into Dallas' throat and rolled herself on top of him, their foreheads meeting with a sickening crack that put him out for the count. Seeming pleased, Violet climbed off, wiping the blood that had pooled under her finger nails on the skirt of her dress and cracking her neck.

Tate watched in total disbelief as she rolled him onto his stomach with a daintily pointed toe. In what must have been a moment of complete and utter loss of control for the person that Violet thought she was, Tate watched her pick the fire poker up off the floor and stab the pointy end right through the back of his jeans.

_That's my kind of girl, _Tate mumbled to himself, and Vivian threw up on the floor.

* * *

The police showed up about twenty minutes after Vivian regained enough lucidity to call them. Although even as the house filled with strangers, she still lacked the strength to tell her teenage daughter to stop chain smoking.

Violet was on her third when the time came for her to shrug off a battery of questions about the excessive degree of their attackers wounds. "Self-defense," she answered from the unfolded back end of the ambulance her mother had been loaded into.

"Don't smoke those so close to the oxygen tanks," the sergeant said as he scribbled in his note pad, not bothering to look her in the eye or hide his dislike for her.

She sucked in the last drag and threw her butt over the fence where it must have just narrowly missed Constance, who had decided that it was time to make her appearance as curious and concerned neighbor lady.

Tate, who hadn't let Violet out of his sight for a second, did put a bit of distance between them now as Constance walked over, cooing and warbling about inner strength, for an obligatory minute before heading towards the least attractive police officer and flirting for details.

"The little girl on the back of the truck," he whispered, and Tate was right next to them, "I think she went crazy, or maybe the guy tried to touch her or something, because she killed two of the attackers and put a fire poker up his caboose," he grimaced with a head nod towards one of the body bags.

Constance went white as a sheet, scanning the front yard of the Murder House with nervous eyes. She was looking for him. It was sweet really, she saw violently sodomized bad guys and thought of her baby boy. Okay maybe not so sweet. But Tate liked it.

"Are you sure…. That it was her I mean."

The police officer nodded, eyes tracking Constance's fingers as they absent mindedly trailed the inside of his forearm with practiced adoration, "She confessed and everything."

"Anderson!" a higher ranking officer yelled across the yard, "Wrap it up."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I have to go," he stuttered, "But maybe I could call you sometime…"

"I'd rather you didn't," she said simply, lighting up a cigarette of her own and discarding the filter. She smoked as she watched the squad cars, the fire engine, and finally, the ambulance full of Harmon women pull off the ruined Astroturf of the Murder House's front yard.

When the last of them were gone, she tapped her ashes, "Another two lucky souls make it out alive," she muttered to the old maid who had appeared by her side a moment ago.

"Where am I? What happened?" came Violet's voice from behind them and Constance's eyes screwed up into slits.

"Not quite."


	3. Home Invasion II

Okay! I know how it's gonna end now! *claps*

Don't even for a second take this story seriously, btw.

Thank you for all of the lovely reviews. You're all peaches.

The second half of this chapter jumps around a lot, it's lots of little scenes, so even if you find Ben and Vivian boring, it should go pretty fast. Then the next chapter will be AALLL VIOLATE!

* * *

Most of what the old lady was yammering about went in one ear and out the other, but the one thing that did stick for Violet was the bit about the house arrest. As means of coping with that horrible news, she managed to deny, if only for a little while, that she had ever even died.

"I feel fine, I can't be dead, the guy just knocked me out or something."

Moira, who Violet had come to learn was so much more than an eclectic house keeper her mother had been strong armed into hiring, simply waved a hand towards the staircase, silently suggesting that Violet go see for herself.

The second floor of The Murder House had been almost completely undisturbed by the police. There was no indication, made by either victim or the one surviving attacker that anything had transpired there and so it had been ignored.

Now Violet stood face to face, well, almost, with her own dead body, sprawled out as wide as the confining walls of the tub allowed.  
"Jesus," Violet muttered, completely awe struck as she stared down at herself.

"It's unsettling," Moira offered some understanding from besides her, but when Violet asked for her help hiding the body and cleaning the bloody mess, it became apparent that understanding was all she would get.

"I work Monday through Thursday, until five o'clock."

Violet, alone with her problem, glared at the back of the maids head until she disappeared down the hall.

* * *

She wasn't alone though, not really. If Tate had his way, he'd never leave her alone again.

He was dressed, rubber and darkness covering every inch of him, because, well, he didn't need an excuse, this was how he dressed when he worked for the house.

Just like Moira disliked cleaning people's houses in her own clothes, he too craved the purpose and focus that he could only find in his… uniform.

Violet had been sitting on the rim of the tub, smoking fiercely for the past hour, every so often, wiping away a fallen tear with an exasperated sigh.

"What am I supposed to do with you?" she asked herself, grinding a spent filter into the porcelain soap shelf.

* * *

With some semblance of a plan, Violet let the cold water pour over the gashes in her chest and neck until the water ran clear and her skin turned a frightening shade of white.

Tate, who had been expecting Violet to lose her nerve any moment now, as he watched her looming over the tub, really fucking liked that she didn't. Instead, she reached in and grabbed a hold of herself. The body landed on the floor besides the tub with a sickening smush; Violet couldn't help the grimace that betrayed her discomfort, but she didn't let it slow her down.

With hands locked around limp wrists, Violet began pulling herself towards the staircase.

Tate paused inside the bathroom before following after, wondering what the hell she could be thinking, where she was going...

When the house shook with a sound that rolled like thunder, he catapulted himself out the doorway in time to catch Violet's surprised little smirk as her body tumbled down the last few steps. He couldn't help but chuckle, snapping the smirk right off her face and her eyes to the place where he was standing. If he stayed very, very still, maybe she wouldn't know he was there.

"Fucking welcoming committee," she scoffed towards him, before prancing down the grand stair case and resuming her trip, body in tow.

Tate followed after like some kind of fucking puppy dog.

The next set of steps, the ones that led into the basement, was louder, creakier, and it was clear that Violet had had enough for tonight; she winced at every clud and thunk. Climbing down the stairs and stepping over herself, she seemed to finally accept that her own capability had been exhausted as she gazed, unsure down each long dark corridor that branched out into the basement.

Tate had an idea of where he could hide her, but he'd have to go alone, it was a bit of a tight squeeze.

"Isn't anyone going to help me!" she bellowed suddenly into the darkness, her voice bounced off the walls and she shuddered when it returned to her.

"Finally," Tate sighed, appearing behind her, side stepping her place on the bottom stair and moving towards the lifeless Violet on the floor.  
He heard her scuttle up a few feet, further away from him; understandably since he was a bit of a shocking sight.

"Holy shit," she breathed, and he smirked at her with hidden lips.

Leaning over, he first smoothed out her wrinkled dress, and tucked a chunk of wet hair behind her ear.

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that she was watching, transfixed as he touched her.

Tate had been shooting for a kind gesture, but perhaps he overshot.

Hoisting her limp form into his arms, he turned and began walking into the basement.

"Wait! Where are you taking her- me?"

"Someplace safe," he gritted out, unable to look at her when he spoke through the mask.

"Do you... do you need help?"

"No. Go to bed," he answered, maybe a bit more harshly than he had intended, but in a rare moment of obedience, Violet rose to her feet and with a mumbled okay, disappeared to her bedroom.

Tate eyes brows shrugged behind his mask. That was easier than he had expected it to be.

* * *

Later, after he had carried her body quickly but awkwardly through the crawlspace and deposited her some where she would be safe, he appeared at the foot of her bed, hoping to find her sleeping peacefully after a long day like none she had ever known before.

Unfortunately, she was still awake, on top of the covers and restless; tossing and turning from one side of the bed to the other, burying her head underneath her pillow in an attempt to muffle whatever it was she was hearing.

Were the sounds that these walls made as loud for her as they had been for him?

She was stronger now than he had been back then, and one day she'd be running this place, outranked only by his seniority, but for now, she needed his help.

"Go away," he silently willed the spirits and disembodied voices that were swirling beneath the floor boards and behind the powder blue sheetrock of her room, and they obeyed. It was a mutual sort of loyalty he had developed with the house, and no matter how much they may have been craving fresh meat in that instance, he knew they needed his alliance more.

Tate could see the moment that the silence returned for her because her legs went slack against the bed spread and her body deflated with a sigh of relief.

His hands squeaked as they wound tighter around the brass bars of her foot board, and he cursed himself when he saw the way she froze, suddenly aware that someone else was in the room.

Her face slowly peaked out from underneath the pillow, looking hesitant; afraid of what she was going to be faced with next. If she was scared when she saw him standing at the foot of her bed, her face didn't let on. Instead she looked… appreciative, as she drew her legs up underneath her and slipped them under the covers. "I'm so tired," she admitted, and Tate could tell; she looked exhausted.

"You'll stay?"

He just nodded, and with another small, grateful smile, Violet fell asleep.

* * *

Ben got home the next morning after taking the red eye. To the best of his knowledge, Hayden was in bed, asleep, with a doctor's appointment the following morning.

But of course, that would have been too easy to be true. Hayden boarded the flight after his, and with the address of his office emblazoned across her Blackberry screen in big green print, she was only a cab ride away from confrontation.

* * *

Violet heard the blow out between her parents before she opened her eyes. With the domestic dispute going on below her, she almost felt as if maybe nothing had changed, but she knew it had.

Violet was downstairs in a second, inside the pantry where she was hidden but privy to every word.

When Vivien told Ben that she had already had the house listed, an icey cold panic gripped Violet and stopped her breathing. They couldn't leave. She _couldn't _leave.

Back in her room and shaking with anxiety, Violet looked high and low for her stalker, guardian, gimp, whatever title he preferred would be fine with her, but he was gone.

* * *

After two rounds with The Mrs., Ben Harmon had some thinking to do, so he went for a jog. It had been hard, but he had convinced Vivien to hold off on showing the house, reasoning that he needed the space for his home office, the current failure of which he had managed to glaze over.

Running through LA was nothing compared to the runs he had enjoyed on the rural streets of Boston. This place smelled like pollution, the cars honked at him, and he missed the cold. Also, the company was …a little ominous, to say the least.

For the last quarter of a mile, a strange man in a top hat, bent over at what seemed to be an unnatural but permanent angle had been following him. Calling on his high school track star days, Ben tried to put this weirdo in his dust, but he just couldn't lose him. Finally, after luring him up the front steps of the city court house, Ben turned around and confronted the weirdo.

"Why are you following me!?" he yelled, getting only a startled "ARGH," in return. The man, who Ben could now see was badly scared or burned gripped his chest as he came down from the shock and wouldn't it be funny if he had given his stalker a heart attack?

"My name is Larry Harvey. I don't mean you any harm." The man, Larry, was speaking in the gasps that he could manage between breaths. When he finally calmed down completely his tone turned serious, "I only want to warn you…. it's about your house."

Ben listened to the creep talk for a good twenty minutes, one sob story and unfortunate circumstance after the other. It was dull and reminded him of being at work, but it was worth it, eventually, when Ben was able to thank the man for his concern and jog away unaccompanied.

In a complete lapse of common sense, Ben didn't let the fact that this man knew where he lived cause him any undue panic.

* * *

When Ben was finished with his jog, he came up around the back of the house, hoping to sneak in a shower before Vivien could get her hands on him again/

Focusing on not treading into her territory backfired as someone he wanted to see even less than his wife, treaded into his.

"Surprise!" Hayden exclaimed joyfully, suggesting that she was completely unaware of how unwelcome she was.

"God Damn it!" Ben jumped a foot and a half in the air and nearly knocked her out with a flailing limb.

"Easy there, Daddy. Precious cargo," she said though a smile, rubbing her stomach and reaching for his hand in a way that didn't suggest, but confirmed that she was certifiably insane.

As a mental health professional, Ben tried for a minute to handle her with the kid gloves she seemed to require, but as a raving lunatic himself, he quickly lost his composure.

After one too many mentions of disregarding his 'real family', the stinging sensation on the back of his hand registered quicker than his regret.

Wiping the phantom blood out of the corner of her mouth, (Ben rolled his eyes at that, he hadn't hit her _that_ hard) Hayden lowered her voice and her brow, making her seem surprisingly scary for a woman of her stature, and nested her talons in the folds of his sweat soaked cut off.

"You listen to me Ben Harmon, you have no one to blame for this pickle you're in but yourself, and I'll be damned -"

*clunk*

Ben blinked once and opened his eyes to her face, frozen in an expression that said, 'what the fuck?'

He blinked again and opened his eyes in time to see her very slowly tipping over, down. Down. Down; until her body landed with a thud, and her head landed with a slightly delayed and sickening crack.

Ben blinked a few more times trying to figure out if Hayden surviving would be best case scenario or worst, while Larry Harvey and his shovel laid out the terms and conditions of repaying his 'favor'.

* * *

A knock on the door forced Vivian to come to terms with her new found paralyzing anxiety much sooner than she would have liked.

Cracking it open just the slightest bit, she got a peak of a young woman, dressed in head to toe flawless vintage and a curly bob on top.

"Can I help you?"

"Yes, I'd like to see the house," Nora answered without preamble, and had it not been for Vivien's busy morning, there would have been no context to support the demand.

"Oh – I didn't think anyone would come so quickly – I'm so sorry but we removed the listing. We've decided to stay."

Nora sighed and cast a wistful glance past the entry way, "Smart woman, only a fool would let a place like this go."

Vivien smiled, following the strangers eyes as they trailed over the Mahogany banisters and Tiffany lighting, for the first time, a self-satisfied smiled graced her lips as she let herself feel proud of the beautiful house she could call her own.

"It's just like I remember it," Nora whispered to herself, straining as though she was trying to see further inside.

"Oh you've been here before?" Vivien asked, opening the door wider and relaxing against the frame.

"I live here," Nora replied shortly, the glaze over her eyes was falling away as she took an uninvited but unprotested step inside the house. She could see Vivien more clearly now, and not entirely displeased with the woman occupying her estate, she pulled a quick smile to make up for her tone and corrected herself, "Used to-live here that is."

Vivien nodded enthusiastically, "Oh it must have been wonderful growing up here. We have a young daughter, she's very taken with the place."

Nora nodded, biting her tongue.

"Do you have any children?" Vivian asked?

"No… no regrettably I had a boy but he was taken too soon."

Vivien's palm crushed into the space between her breasts, "I lost a son too, a baby. Earlier this year."

Nora stiffened, the unexpected information causing her to break her old fashioned restraint and grasp Vivian's free hand in hers.

* * *

Once her unexpectedly relatable, and frankly just unexpected all together, visitor has left, Vivian headed out into the backyard where she had heard Ben's car pull up a few minutes ago.

With a whole new oulook on life; the house and her circumstances, she was eager to make a mends with the man she spent the morning yelling at.

"Sweaty," she commented after running a hand over the small of his back, with a flirty wink.

Ben had been hauling two by fours out of the hatch back but when she touched him, he stopped and kissed her like he had something to prove.

"We're gonna make this work. Out here, I mean," He said, and since she had no reason to believe he was trying to convince anyone besides her, she nodded.

"What's all the wood for?" she asked.

"I was thinking of putting up a gazebo."

* * *

"You have to get me my baby," Nora whines for the third time since she found Tate trying to read in peace a half hour ago.

"You'll get a baby," he assured her, flipping a page; "You haven't even given them a month."

"It doesn't matter how long I give them, they'll never get anything accomplished without your help," Nora insisted, experimenting with flattery and a light brush of her fingers of his shoulder. Eyeing her skeptically, Tate stood and discarded his book.

"You want me to get rid of them?"

"No!" Nora exclaimed, terrified by the possibility.

"Then what exactly did you have in mind?"


	4. Murder House

I'm sorry. I'm a major dick. But The new chapter is here now. So yay.

This story got a lot of reviews. I didn't think it would. lol. So thank you.

* * *

Two days into her sentence of eternity, Violet was feeling the perfect combination of bored, ballsy, and maybe a little bit lonely, to give up exploring the now redundant attic and creep down the steps into the dark and uncharted waters of the Murder House basement.

There were windows rimming the very tops of each wall, but they did a poor job of illuminating the endless channels that ran below her Victorian; there was pitch darkness at the end of each direction and it seemed to swallow up the light faster than the sun could supply it.

Ten minutes later, Violet was back with a flashlight and enough piss and vinegar (read; immortality) to propel her down the first hallway without hesitation.

The cobwebs hung low enough to brush her shoulders as she walked and there was something scuttling and squeaking behind the walls, or in the walls, or maybe closer…

She picked up everything she found, opened every forgotten moving box and took half a dozen nick-knacks along with her to investigate later when she got upstairs into better lighting.

The scuttling was getting louder, creeping towards her. She threw a slightly over confident look over her shoulder, expecting to see her …. 'friend', but he wasn't there. With a panicked sort of twirl she checked every corner of dark room around her, hoping he would pop out of a shadow saturated corner and remind her that her fearlessness was not unfounded.

But she was alone, with the skittering noises that were growing louder…. And closer… and more frightening, because she did not know if she could get away with dying twice, and she knew she could still feel pain, and when the creature from the darkest corner of the basement lunged at her, she barely had time to open her mouth a scream.

* * *

Violet woke up, she wasn't sure how much later, with a throbbing in her head and neck that felt similar to the one she felt the night she died.

The basement floor felt cold and lonely as she shook off the nausea and dizziness.

The scuttling she remembered was there again and it rushed her recovery along, right into the upright and locked position. Now that she was on two feet, she could tell that the sound was going, rather than coming which made it seem far less threatening. But that wasn't going to lull Violet into any sense of safety, so she brushed off the back of her skirt as she took off in the direction she was almost sure the stairs were.

"Aww shit," she mumbled when she had finally gotten close enough to the staircase to hear that some jerk was about to push the doorbell through the wall if they didn't ease the fuck up. She took the stairs two at a time.

Already disgruntled as she swung open the door, Violet became a bubbling mess of inconvenienced when she saw Leah on the other side.

"What do you want?" she asked, not even bothering to hide her dislike for the girl.

"You don't look sick… I was hoping you had pneumonia or the black lung. Something that had you coughing up blood and justice," Leah sneered down from the treacherous heights of impractical pumps.

"Nope, just good old fashioned chlamydia, caught it from your boyfriend."

"Shut up skank, just take your books," Leah wiped at the side of her nose absentmindedly as she toed a stack of books closer to the door.

"Cocaine's a hell of a drug," Violet muttered as she turned down to retrieve them.

"Judgey."

"No," Violet said slyly, "I speak from experience," the words spun into lies before she could stop them, too distracted by the silent movie about long awaited revenge and finally some fucking entertainment playing behind her forehead. "I've got some actually. If you wanna come in, take a hit, we'll call this cat fight a draw."

"You're full of shit," Leah spat, backing away from the doorway, but Violet could see her itching for it.

"Suit yourself, but it's great shit. I guess I'll just have to enjoy it all by my one-" Violet had set the stack of books down on her side of the jam and was easing the door shut over her own words.

"Wait-"

*Smirk*

* * *

"Where are you even taking me?" Leah whined from a few steps up.

"I keep my stash in the basement – have to – parents toss my room every week." Violet turned back with a trustworthy smile and a two finger tap to her temple, like she was so fucking smart.

She was.

"You're screwing with me…" Leah shrieked when a low hanging cobweb brushed her shoulder.

"Geeze, it's just a basement…" Violet sighed, "Just chin up, it'll be worth it. This is great shit. A lot of the coke coming into the US from South America is smuggled in on lobster boats in Gloucester. I used to show my boobs to the lobstermen in return for a key or two before they cut it."

"So where is it?"

Violet ducked behind Leah when she heard the scuttling noise, "Right around the corner," she directed, stopping and pretending to re-lace a boot. "To the right."

"This place is a dump."

"Oh shut-" Violet started but Leah's scream cut her off.

_Caught off guard? Nice._

Violet took a step back and watched the wonderful scene in front of her. It wasn't her usual choice of entertainment – it wouldn't have even broken her top-ten list of ways to spend a Friday night when she was alive – but now… well now it seemed to suit her situation, and she was enjoying it.

Leah's screams were becoming more desperate, wailing to a peak until finally she went quiet with a whispered 'mommy'.

"That's enough you little shit, go away!" and maybe a little bit to Violet's surprise, the papier mache nightmare disappeared into thin air.

In the empty space Violet could hear Leah gasping for breath and moaning in pain.

"Oh my god what was that?" Violet asked in her best 'I'm super shocked' voice.

Leah wobbled into a sitting position and started screaming all over again when she realized her face was bleeding.

"That looks pretty deep," Violet commented as Leah rushed past her, crying and cradling her cheek. "Why don't you try rubbing some coke on you fucking junkie!" she yelled with a laugh up the stairs.

When the door of the Murder House slammed shut, the sounds of a deeply disturbed if not deserving twelfth grader could no longer be heard, and Violet let out a little let down sigh.

* * *

What the fuck did she think she was doing? How did she know how to get rid of Thaddeus? Did she know the deal with the house? None of the ghosts had made contact with her; he'd made sure of that. What if she just got lucky?

He's ten feet away from her now and he can practically smell the pride rolling off her. She's getting cocky. She didn't know what she was doing. He needed to take her down a few notches. It was for her own good.

* * *

Violet was on her way towards the staircase, head lolling between her shoulders, feeling light with laughter when she felt strong hands on her shoulders and then felt the stair rail making sharp and sudden contact with the middle of her back. "Ugh – what the - " she managed before a rubber covered hand clamped over her mouth.

"Oh. 'Bout time you showed up," she snarked around his fingers.

He cocked his head at her, didn't say a word, just pressed his hand harder into her mouth and squeezed her right arm tighter; tight enough to bruise. Wordless intimidation had always been his strong suit.

Violet struggled a bit, pulled her forearms up and shoved him; two tiny palms against his chest that did more damage than any round of bullets could have because he fucking stumbled backwards.

"You think you're the only one in this place, who's allowed to have any fun?" she asked, the last word scraping its way over her bottom lip in a way that was so profane it cued the sound of blood hammering behind his ears. Tate hoped she couldn't hear it as he recaptured her arms, at the wrists this time and pushes her back against the banister.

This was the closest he'd ever been to her and she was hot; like body temp gone wild. He was pretty sure he wasn't imagining it; latex might not have been the best insulator and he was a little chilly but her cheeks were flushed so he had a pretty good idea of what he was doing to her.

Her eyes were fierce and wild and when she pushed up against him again it was mostly with her shoulders and the threat of a heat-butt that he dodged.

He smirked and she smiled big once she saw it reach his eyes.

She was fucking gorgeous but he couldn't be thinking about that right now. She has been acting like a child, and she was going to get herself or someone else in deep shit if he didn't set her straight.

This was his job, after all.

"I think I died before," she said, out of the blue and her casual tone caught him off guard.

"I'm pretty sure at least," she continued while he unintentionally loosened the grip on her wrists. "King of the Mole People kinda sorta ate my face off..." Violet was looking down, biting her lip; Tate thought she looked uncharacteristically self-conscious.

Her head rolled from one shoulder to the other until just her eyes could tilt up towards him when she asked, "Where were you?"

It was earth shattering and Tate met his regret for not saving her with a steady stream of inward profanity and the hot spread of 'you're in trouble' running across his shoulders.

He was in too deep. This girl had become a problem. He'd done too much for her and now she was starting to expect shit, staring at him with wide and expectant eyes.

He wasn't sure how he was going to fix this, but one this was for sure; she wasn't going to be accepting any more of his wordless intimidation or wordless anything for that matter, because she was reaching for the zipper that trailed across his mouth.

Tate tried to flinch away but she had the tag in a pinch grip and he instinctively pulled his lips in as she slid the jaw of his mask open until it hung limp under his chin.

"Well?" she prompted him again and unfortunately he spit out the first lame thing that came to mind.

"I was busy."

She scoffed and his brow tightened. "You think I'm joking?!" he asked, shaking her by the shoulders a little. "You think you're my only problem? I have responsibilities," he was almost yelling and he hated it but it would be for the best, "I can't be bothered running around after some. Stupid. Girl!"

Obviously displeased with his tone, the fact that he called her a 'stupid girl' and a 'problem', along with his sub-par answer in general, Violet decided to zip his lips.

Literally.

She moved too quickly for him to avoid her and when she whipped his zipper shut, his lips caught in the tiny gears and he made this strangled wailing kind of noise that she decided was **just perfect**.

"Where are you going?" he mumbled once he got his skin unpinched and realized she had ducked out from under him.

He watched her pick up a few discarded items from the far end of the basement floor, where she had dropped them earlier and spit out a mouth full of blood.

Before flouncing up the stairs with her treasures, Violet made a point of getting as close to him as possible to shout, "I'm going to get a freaking hobby!"

* * *

Tate stood shell shocked against the banister for a minute, making sure she was gone before gingerly easing the mask over his rapidly swelling and still bleeding lip.

A second after he tilted his head back and let his eyes fall closed, a familiar hand swept across his face; a gentle thumb over the mess on his mouth.

"You did the right thing," Nora reminded him and Tate just nodded.

"You have more important things to do," she continued and Tate opened his eyes, feeling ready to make up for his lapse in loyalty.

"Tonight."

* * *

Uh-oh, i wonder what Violet's gonna cook up to ease her boredom.

And what does Tate have planned for this evening?

*evil laughter*

xo


	5. Murder House II

Ohh i took too long.

sorry.

But it's a crazy chapter, so enjoy

* * *

Violet slammed, the old fashioned way, up each and every step until she reached her bedroom and then slammed her door too.

The nerve of that weirdo! Well fuck him. She didn't need him.

Maybe she wanted him a little bit, but that wasn't important. She couldn't get wrapped up in the way that black suit clung to every curve and dip of muscle that ran across his back; how it made him look enormous and menacing but agile and transient all at the same time. She couldn't spend her time dwelling on the way his fingers had looked, black and shiny when they trailed over her cold dead skin and imagining how they would feel on her warm, still-dead skin instead. And she certainly had to stop wondering if he made time in his busy asshole schedule to watch her touch herself before she fell asleep at night.

Not when this place was probably loaded with other people; potential friends and allies stuck in the house, just waiting to be found.

The little pile of treasures that had been thrown haphazardly onto her bed was seeping dust and musk into the atmosphere as she flipped through them.

First she picked up the necklace, older than dirty but possibly real. Violet bit the metal lacework that bordered the large flat stone, but since she was unsure of what that would have proved, she tossed it aside regardless. Some stuffy old debutant probably wouldn't make the best companion anyway.

Next there was a set of clamps, or scissors, or something. Two rows of sharp metal teeth that locked into place when you flipped a little nobby. They kind of looked like medical equipment but more threatening; like an instrument of torture. Violet didn't want to be friends with whomever these belonged too. In fact, she should probably hurry up and put them back right where she found them.

The final and biggest piece in her haul was a leather-bound book, edges and corners of newspaper clippings sticking out of the sides. Violet flipped through a few pages, boring, standard scrapbooking contents. George Bush Senior's Inaugural address, a review of a community theaters production of Brigadoon, some recipes from a yellowing ladies home journal, boring, boring, boring… not boring.

**16 Dead in Westfield Massacre**

**Westfield Massacre Memorial**

**Busy Morning – Stepfather Set Ablaze**

When she finally found a picture, chills prickled up and down her arms and across her back. She recognized him. It was the kid who shot her librarian; the hottie with a body-count from the internet.

This was his Los Angeles home? This was where he died?

Her original research hadn't been very thorough but how could she have missed a tidbit like that?

Was he stuck her like she was?

If he was, he hadn't made any appearances.

Violet lay back against her pillows and set the book down over her chest, her finger holding her spot while she contemplated the best way to bring a ghost out to play.

* * *

Before putting her plan into action, Violet spared a half hour to make an appearance at the Harmon family dinner where her parents - having looped back around to the most awkward phase of their ever cycling reconciliation where they are on good terms but refuse to speak to each other for fear of ruining it like they know one of them was bound to do – failed to notice she was DEAD. Again.

Violet took her gluten free soy loaf cake dessert to her room for later and cut out early with vague mentions of homework. But instead of heading back to her room, she went straight for her father's office where Vivian's abandoned attempts at a family game night were stashed high away in a closet where they couldn't mock her.

Life.

Risk.

Sorry.

Monopoly.

Aha!

The dark horse of the Hasbro family.

With the board under one arm and half a dozen of her mother's 'me time' scented soy candles in the tote bag over her shoulder, Violet was set for a séance.

* * *

The sun had been down for hours, and it was pushing midnight, but the Harmons were still pattering around.

Ben had tried to get into Vivian's disinterested sweatpants but failed and Tate was hoping she'd be up for something a little bit more adventurous.

While Loraine kept Ben busy in the kitchen, like she was prone to do, Tate steeled himself in the upstairs bathroom. This was what he needed to do. It was what the House needed him to do. He walked carefully to the doorway of the master bedroom and stood silently, waiting to be noticed.

* * *

It was almost midnight and Violet was ready to go. The board in front of her was set and the candles surrounding her were creating so much of the ambiance she desired, that she had managed to creep herself out a little.

"Are there spirits, besides myself," she specified with an eye role, "in this house?"

The small wooden key dragged her to 'yes' almost immediately.

"Are they trapped here like I am?"

The paddle only spiraled over the 'yes'.

"Is Tate Langdon here?"

She swore to God that she felt the paddle jump beneath her fingertips and land firmly back down on the 'yes'.

"Well then, if the spirit of Tate Langdon is here… show yourself to me," Violet commanded into the empty basement.

* * *

Upstairs Vivien had gotten over her initial start when she saw the man, assumedly her husband, standing in the doorway.

"I thought you threw that thing away," she said, not giving any hints to whether or not she was happy he hadn't.

When Vivian casually let her already unbuttoned flannel pajama top fall away, Tate couldn't help but smirk. This was going to be easy. He took a step closer to her, ready to get things going, but his feet were so heavy and it felt like he was trudging through sand.

"Oh, so you're not talking tonight? Alright. I can play too. I can be kinky."

Another few steps closer to the bed had him faltering against some unseen current, set on washing him out the door and down the steps. If Vivian had noticed the way he tripped over himself while she was busy capping her night cream, she didn't say anything.

Looking up with a smile, she waved him over, into the bed and in between her freshly moisturized and parting thighs. The promise of something new had obviously thawed her earlier frigidity.

She just had no idea how new.

Tate took stronger, bigger steps towards her, forcing himself against the invisible tide until he could climb onto the bed.

"Tate!"

His body snapped into an upright position, searching for the source of the voice that had called his name. Vivien was below him, running her hands along his abdomen; a little muttering about him loosing weight made his blood run cold and brought his attention back down to her. If she noticed any other differences, realized he wasn't Ben, everything would be ruined.

He folded back over her and her arms looped around his shoulders.

The voice, continued calling his name. "Tate….Tate…. Tate!"

His hands didn't feel real as they plunged into the soft mattress on either side of Vivian's shoulders. His feet didn't feel real where he had braced them against her foot board

Quick hands were heading south and between struggling just to make it into the room, and then struggling to ignore the voice, Tate hadn't even bothered to get a hard-on, and was realizing now that he couldn't.

The voice was too insistent, too demanding. It needed him.

She needed him. The voice was distinctly female.

Vivian was sucking on his fingers through the latex and while he did appreciate her enthusiasm, his mind was elsewhere, trying to figure out where he recognized that voice from.

"Tate!" it screamed again. The voice of the woman in his mind was morphing with the undeniably pleasurable pressure of the soles of Vivian's feet against the arch of his calves, and becoming something he was sure it wasn't meant to be.

* * *

Violet was in the basement, growing impatient and agitated.

"Tate!" she yelled, "Come out!"

* * *

"God Tate!" it screamed again, this time throatier, more desperate, more familiar.

It was Violet. It had to be. He'd never had the pleasure of hearing her tongue wrap around his name at all, let alone in a way that made him harder. Oh. He was hard. This could work. It would have to work.

He focused on the way her voice ricocheted around the inside of his skull like a 22. It was fantastic and he let it fill his whole body when Vivian's hands found him.

Each clicking notch of his zipper would have been an hour for him, it would have been agonizing if he hadn't had a better place in his mind, built on the foundation of Violet's voice and filled with her face and hands and the soles of her feet on the arches of his calves. Everything he wanted more than he wanted to be where he was.

When Vivian's hand reached inside the suit it didn't matter how willing he was to please the house, and it didn't matter how conveniently hard he might have been. Because he was gone.

* * *

"Violet," he said with a huff as his latex bound ass hit the floor with a thud.

Her jaw hung open as she waited for him to recover from his fall. First she watched, mildly amused, as his hands snapped to the front of his mask, and once he ensured that it was still in place, they locked eyes.

Violet was trying to process her new information while Tate silently wondered if she had managed to ruin everything, or possibly save his ass. The barely there smiles they were able to exchange, his only visible in the pinching skin around his eyes, only lasted for a second before the moment was shattered by her mother's out of control screaming.

"There's someone in the house!" she yelled over and over again, clumsy, terrified feet stamping down the halls and stairs that shook violently.

As fast as she could, she crossed the room while Tate watched, completely done trying to plan anything now that she was around.

Once she flung open the window at the top of the wall, she let out a scream of her own and gave the boy on the basement floor a reassuring smile and told him to 'fuck off' as sweetly as possible.

Ben came barreling down the basement stairs a heartbeat later with a baseball bat and crazy eyes.

Violet sobbed and pointed towards the window, a flawless fucking performance if she said so herself.

* * *

"He said if I said anything, he'd kill me! Then he shimmied through the window and took off running," *sniffle* "I screamed once he was gone."

Vivian wrapped her daughter up in a hug once she had finished spilling her dishonest guts to the police officers who had shown up on the scene. Violet squirmed uncomfortably and breathed a sigh of relief when her mother almost immediately released her to follow Officer Dark Chocolate to the door.

When they were gone and her mother's giggling could be heard from the door from the far end of the house, Ben crossed his arms and gave his daughter a once over.

When she asked 'what?' with a head jut he looked down, tapped his fingers on the counter and asked, "What were you doing down there anyway?" he sounded almost shy, "With all that…" he made a broad hand gesture and then underwhelmed it with the word, "stuff".

Violet smirked, then shrugged, making her way past him as she contemplated her answer. "I'm a teenage girl. We're weird and creepy and sometimes we sacrifice animals to the Dark Lord Satan."

Ben's eyes bugged out of his head and Violet laughed.

"I'm fucking with ya, I was just having a séance." she assured and he sat down hard on the stool by the counter as she turned up the staircase.

* * *

if you don't get the thing about the 22, you don't watch enough crime dramas. lol

Until next week my dears. X3


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